November can be such a dreary month in Portland. Once Halloween is gone the city settles in for its long, gray winter/spring nap. The holidays, while right around the corner, still seem like they're a million miles away. But, occasionally, the rain stops and, if only for a few moments, this place starts looking like a dang calendar spread. Man, look at all that foliage! Suck it, Vermont!

Ok, so that last snapshot does look more like something you'd see in a calendar devoted to images from Neil Gaiman's brain. Still, doesn't it just ooze Portland-Flavored November Gloom all over the place? This tree sits in my neighbor's yard. I took this photo around midnight on a foggy night as I was driving home.


More images of Portland bein' all Portlandy? Click here.

Labels: autumn, the weather

Labels: the weather

This is another one of those "which photo hasn't actually been rendered in black and white" posts. Feel free to take a guess.

Labels: the weather

I think these cover the bases.

Labels: the weather

Well, last night the temperature dropped to an unusually frigid 14 degrees in Portland and Multnomah Falls is frozen over. In other local waterfall-related news, people are scaling Mist Falls with ice axes.

Much less exciting: a few puddles in my neighborhood have frozen over and my front steps make a crunching noise when I climb them. Zzzzz. To the Gorge!

Labels: the weather

One of the benefits of my membership in Portland's not-so-exclusive unemployment club is that I can attend events like free admission day at the Japanese Garden in Washington Park. It fell on Veterans Day and, while I wasn't officially out of a job yet, I utilized a soon-to-expire sick day to spend the day doing chores.

I found out about the event on Twitter late in the afternoon and headed up as what had been a gorgeous fall day was beginning to turn. The sky was growing dark as I started hiking up the hill to the gardens' gate. I made the decision not to go back for my umbrella, thus ensuring, through some obscure statute in karmic law no doubt, that a storm would roll through at any second.

Thirty minutes later, idyllic landscapes like the one above were getting bombarded with hailstones. I sought shelter inside the pavilion next to the Flat Garden with a few dozen others. The garden was shutting down for the night but no one was willing to weather the storm and the staff was reluctant to kick us all out into the elements.

So there we all stood, awkwardly staring at cells phones while a few kids idly drew diagrams with their feet in the fallen hail. The orange autumn leaves and the rain created a view from the veranda that was equal parts intimidating and real durn purty. It was the sort of odd, random experience people remember forever but, once a baby started wailing and shattered the serenity in the air, I decided to blaze a trail back to the car. Soaked to the bone, I turned my car towards downtown as a rainbow shot up and over the tennis courts.

Labels: nature, the weather

Was the winter of 2009 particularly gloomy in Portland? Well, I think it was rather typical weather wise. Lots of clouds, a few days of sun here and there, followed by more clouds. Ok, fine, there was that whole "snowpocalypse" incident back in December but, hey, that made the holidays a lot more interesting.

When news arrived that the temperature was set to climb into the 70s this past weekend it was as if a citywide holiday had been declared. Locals suddenly started acting like those kids in All Summer in a Day. I was in Pioneer Square on Friday afternoon when Stephanie Stricklen popped out of KGW's "Studio on the Square" to ask random passersby how they would be spending the weekend. I confessed that I had to work on Sunday, which left me feeling like that girl who gets stuffed into the broom closet in the Bradbury short story we all had to read in the 8th grade. Eh, at least my response made it on the air that night. I must confess that my nose doesn't look so great in "stunning HD."

Yeah, I DVR'd it.

After spending the past few days in a stuffy office I was determined to enjoy the weather this evening before "the gloom" returns for another 6 - 11 weeks. Of course, by the time I was off the clock the clouds were already rolling in. Calls were made, plans were nixed but I still went downtown to see how the cherry blossoms in Waterfront Park are doing....

And in case you're wondering what the mannequins in the display window of Naked City on Hawthorne are up to....

That's right. I just made an awkward transition from a few innocent photos of cherry blossoms to, uh, this.

Ok, let's see. We've got a werewolf double-fisting tall boys beside a bikini girl who looks like the Baroness from GI Joe and it's raining pills all around them. I wonder if this is what Russell Brand sees every time he closes his eyes.

Ahhhh, spring in the Rose City....

Labels: the weather

It's nice to see that the Oregon Zoo has its own take on Groundhog Day, which I just found out about. Using an African hedgehog, the zoo offers a second opinion on the annual tradition of using small mammals to predict the weather Too bad the little bugger has been wrong three out of the past four years. For 2009 she predicted that Portland is in for another six weeks of winter. Based on today's temperatures it may as well be late April out there.

Labels: anipals, the weather

Here's a video that was filmed down in the South Waterfront on Monday. Snow and ice? They'll forever be this city's Achilles' heel. I took this same hill without a problem yesterday afternoon. What a difference a day, and snow tires, make. Nonetheless, I wasn't so lucky up on Council Crest about a half hour later.

A hat tip goes out to Jack Bog's Blog, where "Buck a Hit" day is currently in full effect. Merely clicking on that link will result in a two dollar donation being made to local charities.

Labels: snow, the weather

I've been living in Portland for most of my life and I can't recall a week of winter weather as nasty as this one. Ok, sure, there was an ice storm one year when I was in high school that knocked out power in my neighborhood for a week. Still, there seems to be no end in sight to the horrible onslaught of snow and ice (or what people in Denver might call "average December weather") that will keep the city frozen solid through at least Christmas, supposedly.

Anyway, here's some random anecdotes from what I've seen around town since the snow arrived on Sunday.

The cliche lives on. Oregonians can't drive in snow or ice to save their lives. I spent ten minutes stuck on an on-ramp to I-5 tonight and there was barely anything on the freeway to warrant all this overly cautious hysteria. Nonetheless, everyone insisted on driving 15 MPH. I used to believe all the storm-hype spoon fed by local news stations and refused to drive anywhere once snow was in the forecast. Then I finally got my hands on a set of snow tires. What a difference proper traction devices make.

I was drunk on enough snow tire-fueled hubris to head up to Council Crest, the highest point in Portland, this afternoon. I ran into problems when I attempted to scale an ice-covered, 45 -degree street. I made it halfway, spun my wheels and decided to head back down backwards. The PGE crew working along SW Fairmont didn't find this too amusing, especially when I came within five feet of plowing into one of their work trucks. Whoops.

I made it up to the park to find a group of teenagers with snowboards. They were taking turns hitting a ramp leading up to a picnic table. While I was standing there, one landed on his back, the other nearly cleared it and...then landed on his back. I wanted to get a photo of all of this reckless adolescent self-destruction but I've reached an age where I'm afraid of teenagers and live in perpetual fear of them ever setting foot on my lawn.

Also: check out this makeshift sled ramp. As you might have noticed, that's a large tree sitting ten feet in front of it. Brilliant!

What's with all of these guys that are walking around with ski poles? You can find them on nearly every sidewalk in Portland right now. Does that really help them maintain their balance on icy pavement? Or does it substantially increase the potential for injury? The likelihood of them impaling themselves after slipping? Much higher with ski poles than without.

Local schools will no doubt be shut down all week, thousands are refusing to go to work because the streets aren't safe but, despite everything, 20,000 people managed to make it down to the Rose Garden tonight for the Blazers' 32-point conquest over the Sacramento Kings. Could this mean that locals are finally getting the hang of driving in winter weather and might even stop using it as an excuse convenient excuse to call in sick and drive around town like terrified toddlers? Only time will tell.

Finally, here's a photo of Zoe the dog after a round of snowball fetch.

Labels: snow, the weather

posted by Brandon  # 11:17 PM 0 Comments

What is it with people in this town and scarves?

On Wednesday the temperature climbed into the high 70s but I spotted no less than four people walking around NW dressed as if it were mid-winter. They were covered in some combination of scarves, jackets and khakis while I was walking around in shorts and a t-shirt. Even weirder: on a warm night last week I passed a girl walking down Broadway in a full-length winter coat, dressed as if she was about to go Christmas shopping on a sub-freezing afternoon in northern Quebec. You can drive past the Crystal Ballroom on any given night this time of year and spot at least a half-dozen scarves up and down Burnside.

Maybe it's a fashion thing. Maybe these people bought all of this clothing a few months ago and they've been eagerly waiting for the winter months to arrive. Still, that's got to be uncomfortable. The only thing I can assume is that all of these people are recent transplants from Arizona and any air temperature below 75 is considered "freezing" for them.

Labels: fashion, the weather

I gave up and turned my furnace back on last night, earlier in the fall than usual. This photo was taken on Cannon Beach last week and, believe it or not, it isn't in black and white.

No place does majestic gloom quite like the northern Oregon coastline during the off season.

Labels: the weather

A thin haze has been hanging in the air around Portland these past few days. According to reports, it can all be blamed on smoke drifting up from wildfires in California. This place is starting to look as hazy as the Hollywood Hills but it sure makes for some eerily beautiful sunsets.

Labels: the weather

I think this may be the closest I've ever come to a lighting strike. My guess: that's about three blocks from where I was standing at the time. Then again, I don't know jack squat about meteorology.

Very scary? Uh, sure.

Also....

Labels: the weather

I spent part of the weekend camping alongside a creek somewhere outside of the unincoperated town of Carson, Washington. As we crossed the Bridge of the Gods, either myself or my traveling companion remarked, "We've reached Twin Peaks country." Sure, the real Twin Peaks is upstate somewhere but something about the area screamed, "watch your step or you're going to find yourself bickering over rent control with the owner of the Black Lodge."

The weather was hit or miss and the billion or so people we were camping with rendered our site a mud pit by Saturday afternoon. Besides all that, we were able to engage in activities not limited to eating undercooked bratwursts, building a makeshift beer cooler in a creek, learning how to cook corn-on-the-cob over a campfire, walking on logs over a river, ducking BB pellets and watching this dog eat a live mouse.

Meet Moose. He and a mouse jumped into a bush. Only one of them returned. I'll spare you the details. Here he is actin' all like Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. According to his owner, this is the least of Moose's gastrointestinal accomplishments. Apparently, there's nothing he can't ingest up to and including an entire squirrel.

On Saturday we all went on a hike along Falls Creek. I strongly recommend giving it a shot, if you're into this sort of thing. Trail # 152A is possibly one of the most majestic I've hiked around here, although it could use more out-of-sight spots for pee breaks. Some of us packed beer instead of water and this led to a substantial amount of "awkwardness" involving two middle-aged women and a full bladder.

Nothing my camera can capture does the trail justice.

This snail showed up around the time we decided to abandon camp on Sunday.

An early morning rain shower turned our campsite into what I'm pretty sure would qualify as a bog. Heading back to town seemed like the right thing to do when even Moose seemed more content to hide in a tent than give this French culinary delight a shot.

Labels: dogs, nature, the weather

In 2004 I was so disgusted by the Democratic party and America in general that I wrote in "Pepe the Dancing Mule" for president on my 2004 ballot. Four years later, I was standing in a 20-block long line with, according to one estimate, over 72,000 people to listen to the inevitable 2008 Dem candidate for president on a 90-degree day.

This should serve as yet another testament to the charisma and pull of Barack Obama; that a cynic like me was willing to get out of bed early on a Sunday morning to see him live. Would I have shown up if the Decemberists hadn't opened for him? Sure.

I rolled downtown around 10:30. With two hours to go until the gates opened, the line was already so long I was convinced I didn't stand a chance at getting in. For the next two hours, I tried to bury my face in a book to ward off volunteers, campaigners and t-shirt vendors snaking their way through the crowd, all of them eager to slap a sticker or their wares on anything that moved. I had the good fortune to find myself standing behind a model UN club from a local high school, who happily warded them away by repeating "sorry, we're too young to vote and we have no money." Despite this line, a PETA volunteer managed to get a few pamphlets with photos of tortured piglets into their hands, which they immediately passed off to people desperately trying to find the end of the line.

The Decemberists were rolling through "July, July" as I passed through security and somehow landed myself a spot 75 yards back from the stage. Given the size of this crowd, that wasn't half bad. If I had headed right instead of left at the gate, I would have been led to a spot towards the back. The crowd was mostly indifferent to the band's set and Colin Meloy did his best to get everyone to sing along to "Sixteen Military Wives." Crowd participation was limited to some hand waving during "The Perfect Crime."

They closed with "Sons and Daughters." I'm sad to say the crowd's reception was far more tepid than the one that actually brought a tear to my eye during a Decemberists' set last January at the Crystal Ballroom. During that show, a group of kids jumped on stage to sing "here all the bombs fade away" with the band in a moment reminiscent of those old "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" ads.

Did I mention how hot it was out there? It was damn hot. Real hot. It was so hot that a mother sitting in front of me built a psuedo-tent out of Obama signs to shield her kids from the sun. It was so hot that two large golden retrievers on a small boat in the Willamette jumped into the polluted river and later shook themselves off on their owner, who was wearing a bikini at the time, and the owner didn't seem to care (see above). It was so hot that an elderly man who came to the rally wearing an American flag as a cape had to turned it into a hood. It was so hot I now have a sunburn on my chest because I made the mistake of unbuttoning the top of my polo shirt and it hurts, dammit.

Obama went on stage as a song from Springsteen's The Rising album blasted. He spoke for around 45-minutes and covered his stances on the Iraq war, energy, college tuition and the economy. I'd like to say that seeing him live while surrounded by tens of thousands of people in what will go down as one of Oregon's most significant political moments melted my heart and I spent the rest of the afternoon volunteering at a campaign office but it didn't.

The man is a master orator and this was history being made right before my eyes but the cynic inside me tells me not to get my hopes up. Could anyone really be this good and pure at this level in the American political sphere? Let's hope so. For what it's worth, I won't be writing in the names of any fictional donkeys on my ballot come November.

After the rally, I walked with part of the crowd through Waterfront Park on my way to Stumptown Coffee. Two metalhead-types on mini-bikes buzzed past us on the lawn. "Look at these Obama people," one spat. "They're actin' like they've just seen Jesus." Maybe not Jesus but, with any luck, someone equally capable of pulling off a few miracles. This country could use a few of them.

For infinitely better photos of the today's rally, here's a link to a Flickr gallery The Oregonian put together.

Labels: politics, the weather

This is what my windshield looked like this morning.

Labels: the weather

Last year I remember wandering around downtown on St. Patrick's Day in a t-shirt. The winter of 2008 doesn't seem like it will ever end. I just caught a glimpse of a Tri-Met bus rolling through falling snow on KGW. Earlier today, snowflakes were sticking to the sand at Seaside. Still, the temperature reached a downright balmy upper-50s on Saturday, decent enough weather to head down to the north end of Waterfront Park to take photos and get screamed at by homeless people.

I ventured up to the Burnside Bridge to take the photo above. On the way back to 3rd Avenue, a guy standing outside of a shelter didn't like the looks of me, threatened to kick my ass and followed me for about half a block. That was fun. I'm not sure if this one was worth it.

Labels: sakuras, the weather

One of the drawbacks of spending your winters in Portland: it's easy to forget the last time your skin came into contact with rays of the sun. The big ball of hydrogen and helium made a rare January appearance on Sunday and, like the kids in "All Summer in a Day," I headed outside to make the most of it.

Instead of sadistically locking a classmate in a closet and running off to pick wildflowers I settled instead for pumpkin bread french toast at Beaterville and an afternoon of running around town in search of comic books and a desk calendar. Random blurry cell phone photos? Of course...

I'm not sure what that guy's head is doing in the middle of a toilet seat but I'm sure there's a good reason for it. This can be found on a wall near the mens room.

Parked outside: a car with bunny-related side panels.

Crow Bar. Crowbar? Crow. Bar. Crow Bar. Oooooooooooooooh, now I get it.

I spotted this spotless Ferrari unattended in the middle of the Pearl District. If I owned this machine I don't know if I'd be so cocky, what with all the bicyclist activists around town and the harboring of resentments and the anger towards motor vehicles and the good glaven! This isn't a sports car, it's a $100K+ target for a half-empty cup of coffee. I'm just saying...

Labels: Portland, the weather